Stryker hopes to clean up with TSO3 buy

Serial acquirer Stryker’s latest deal is, at just $51.7m, not the biggest of recent times. But it is an interesting choice as the medtech industry grapples with the ongoing issue of sterilising reuseable devices such as endoscopes. TSO3 makes sterilisation products that can be used with surgical tools and medical devices that are unsuitable for sterilisation by heating. Instead its main device, the Sterizone VP4, uses ethylene oxide gas to kill the microbes that can contaminate hospital products. Inadequate sterilisation of devices has been linked with infections and even deaths in recent years, with the FDA ordering the duodenoscope manufacturers Olympus, Fujifilm and Pentax to conduct postmarket surveillance studies of how their devices are cleaned in real-world settings.This situation was complicated by the US Environmental Protection Agency closing a sterilisation facility run by Sterigenics in February, owing to increased ethylene oxide emissions. The plant was used by medtechs including Medtronic and Teleflex, which were forced to warn of product shortages as a result of the closure. The earliest the plant could reopen is September. Hospitals might well see the appeal of an in-house machine that means they can limit their outsourcing of device reprocessing.